Red Sparowes
Fear Is Excruciating But Therein Lies The Answer
Release Date: Apr 6, 2010
Genre(s): Rock, Experimental
Record label: Sargent
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Album Review: Fear Is Excruciating But Therein Lies The Answer by Red Sparowes
Fairly Good, Based on 3 Critics
Based on rating 8/10
It starts with a whisper: A heavily delayed guitar fills the sonic floor, swells and echoes and reverberates, and soon the room is filled with crashing, triumphant drums and double-tracked guitars aiming for the heavens. But just when you think the song is going to lift off into such a stratosphere, it cuts out, and is almost immediately replaced with a near-funk bassline and subtle drums. One soon ascertains, in the course of the next 43 minutes, that the utmost tenant of Red Sparowes 2.0 is to expect the unexpected.
Based on rating 5.2/10
Since the last time Pitchfork reviewed one of their records, Red Sparowes have recorded an album with song titles inspired by China's Great Leap Forward and dedicated a live album to thieves who stole their instruments that read: "May death come to you on swift wings, may your spoils turn into serpents and coil around your necks, may the rest of your days be stricken with unending sickness, may your children's bodies belong to the fire, may every last one of you anguish in eternal pain, crying aloud for mercy, while we turn our heads away with a smile and a deaf ear. " Suffice it to say that their pretensions aren't only musical-- and in this case, that's a good thing. It takes a certain conviction and character to make instrumental post-rock, and the group's got both with plenty to spare.
Opinion: Excellent
A seamless sonic journey across terrain both bleak and beautiful. Greg Moffitt 2010 In 2005, Red Sparowes released a truly transcendent album in At the Soundless Dawn. This, their third effort, finds them still attempting to top it. 2006’s Every Red Heart Shines Toward the Red Sun clearly wasn’t up to the task, and although they’ve had time aplenty to formulate a suitably epic response, it’s still not quite enough.